Institute of Archaeology

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Christopher Donnan

PROFESSOR EMERITUS

Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1968

Office: Fowler A332
Phone: (310) 825-1991
Fax: 310-206-4723
E-mail: cdonnan@anthro.ucla.edu

Mailing Address:

Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
308 Charles E Young Dr. North
A210 Fowler Building/Box 951510
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1510

Class Websites

UCLA Appointments

Department of Anthropology and Director Emeritus of the Fowler Museum at UCLA

Research Interests

South American archaeology, iconography, ancient technology

Research Summary

Moche civilization flourished on the north coast of Peru between AD 100 and 800. Although the Moche people had no writing system, they left a vivid artistic record of their beliefs and activities in beautifully sculpted and painted ceramic vessels, colorful wall murals, sumptuous textiles, and superbly crafted objects of gold, silver, and copper. Dos Cabezas is a spectacular early Moche settlement located at the delta of the Jequetepeque River. Consisting of pyramids, palaces and domestic areas, it is perhaps the largest early Moche settlement ever built.

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Featured Publication

The Construction of Value

Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

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